SERBIA
‘Send thine hand from above; rid me, and deliver me out of great
waters, from the hand of strange children.’
‘And pray ye that your flight be not in the winter. For in those
days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the
creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be.’
‘On either side of the river, was there the tree of life: And the
leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.’
Dr. Inglis remained at home directing the many operations necessary
to ensure the proper equipment of the units, and the difficult task of
getting them conveyed overseas. From the beginning, till her return
with her unit serving with the Serbian army in Russia, she had the
sustaining co-operation both of the Admiralty and the Foreign Office.
In the many complications surrounding the history of the hospitals
with the Allied armies, the Scottish women owed very much to both
Secretaries of State for Foreign Affairs, and very particularly to Lord
Robert Cecil in his department of the Foreign Office.
It was not easy to get the scheme of hospitals staffed entirely by
women, serving abroad with armies fighting the common and unscrupulous
foe, accepted by those in authority. The Foreign Office was responsible
for the safety of these British outpost hospitals, and they knew well
the dangers and privations to which the devoted pioneer band of women
would be exposed. They made many stipulations with Dr. Inglis, which
she accepted, and abided by as long as her work was not hindered. No
care or diplomatic work was spared, and if at the end of their service
in Russia the safety of the unit was a matter of grave anxiety to
the Foreign Office, it had never cause to be ashamed of the way this
country’s honour and good faith was upheld by the hospitals under the
British flag, amid the chaotic sufferings of the Russian people.
In the spring of 1915 Dr. Eleanor Soltau, who was in charge of the
First Serbian Unit, became ill with diphtheria in the midst of the
typhus epidemic which was devastating the Serbian people. The Serbian
Minister writes of that time:--
‘They were the first to go to the help of Serbia when the Austrians,
after they were defeated, besides 60,000 prisoners, also left behind
them epidemics in all the districts which they had invaded. The
Scottish women turned up their sleeves, so to speak, at the railways
station itself, and went straight to typhus and typhoid-stricken
patients, who were pitifully dying in the crowded hospitals.’
Colonel Hunter, A.M.S., wrote after her death: ‘It was my privilege
and happiness to see much of her work in Serbia when I was officer in
charge of the corps of R.A.M.C. officers sent out by the W.O. to deal
with the raging epidemic of typhus and famine fevers then devastating
the land. I have never met with any one who gave me so deep an
impression of singlemindedness, gentleheartedness, clear and purposeful
vision, wise judgment, and absolutely fearless disposition.... No more
lovable personality than hers, or more devoted and courageous body of
women, ever set out to help effectively a people in dire distress than
the S.W.H.,’ which she organised and sent out, and afterwards took
personal charge of in Serbia in 1915. Amidst the most trying conditions
she, or they, never faltered in courage or endurance. Under her wise
and gentle leadership difficulties seemed only to stir to further
endeavour, more extended work, and greater endurance of hardship.
Captain Ralph Glyn writes from France:--
‘I see you went to the funeral of that wonderful person, Dr. Elsie
Inglis. I shall never forget arriving where that S.W. unit was in the
midst of the typhus in Serbia, and finding her and all her people so
“clean” and obviously ready for anything.’
The Serbian nation lost no time in commemorating her services to them.
At Mladenovatz they built a beautiful fountain close to the camp
hospital. On 7th October 1915 it was formally opened with a religious
service according to the rites of the Greek Church. Dr. Inglis turned
on the water, which was to flow through the coming years in grateful
memory of the good work done by the Scottish Women’s Hospitals.
IN HONOUR OF DR. ELSIE INGLIS
(Obiit Nov. 27, 1917.)
At Mladenovatz still the fountain sings
Raised by the Serbs to you their angel friend,
Who fought the hunger-typhus to its end;
A nobler fountain from your memory springs,
A fountain-head where Faith renews its wings
--Faith in the powers of womanhood to bend
War’s curse to blessing, and to make amend
By Love, for Hate’s unutterable things.
Wherefore, when cannon-voices cease to roar,
A louder voice shall echo in our ears
--Voice of three peoples joined in one accord,
Telling that, gentle to your brave heart’s core,
You faced unwavering all that woman fears,
And clear of vision followed Christ the Lord.
[NOTE.--Two years ago the Serbians dedicated a simple fountain in
‘Mladenovatz’ to the grateful memory of one they spoke of as ‘the
angel of their people.’ The Rumanian and Russian refugees in the
Dobrudja will never forget her.]
H. D. RAWNSLEY.
_The Englishwoman_, April and June 1916, has two articles written by
Dr. Inglis, under the title ‘The Tragedy of Serbia.’ The literary power
of her narrative makes one regret that she did not live to give a
consecutive account of all she passed through in the countries in which
she suffered with the peoples:--
‘When we reached Serbia in May 1915, she was lying in sunshine. Two
storms had raged over her during the preceding months--the Austrian
invasion and the terrific typhus epidemic. In our safe little island
we can hardly realise what either meant. At the end of 1914, the
Austrian Empire hurled its “punitive expedition” across the Danube--a
punitive expedition that ended in the condign punishment of the
invader. They left behind them a worse foe than themselves, and the
typhus, which began in the hospitals they left so scandalously filthy
and overcrowded, swept over the land.’
Dr. Inglis describes ‘the long peaceful summer,’ with its hopes of
an advance to their aid on the part of the Allies. The Serbs were
conscious the ‘Great Powers’ owed them much, for how often we heard the
words, ‘We are the only one, as yet, who has beaten our enemy.’
‘Not till September did any real sense of danger trouble them. Then the
clouds rolled up black and threatening on the horizon--Bulgaria arming,
and a hundred thousand Germans massing on the northern frontier. They
began to draw off the main part of their army from the Danube towards
the east, to meet their old enemies. The Powers refused to let them
attack, and they waited till the Bulgarian mobilisation was complete.
The Allies discounted the attack from the north; aeroplanes had been
out, and “there are no Germans there.” There are no signs whatever of
any military movements, so said the wiseacres. The only troops there
are untrained Austrian levies, which the Serbs ought to be able to deal
with themselves, if they are up to their form last year.
‘Then the storm broke. The 100,000 Germans appeared on the northern
frontier. The Bulgars invaded from the east, the Greeks did not come
in, and the Austrians poured in from the west. The Serbian army
shortened the enormous line they had to defend, but they could not
stand against the long-distance German guns, and so began the retreat.
‘“What is coming to Serbia?” said a Serb to me, “we cannot think.”
And then, hopefully, “But God is great and powerful, and our Allies
are great and powerful too.” Strong men could hardly speak of the
disaster without breaking down. They looked at one so eagerly. “When
are your men coming up? They must come soon.” “We must give our people
two months,” the experts among us answered, “to bring up the heavy
artillery. We thought the Serbs would be able to hold the West Morava
Valley.” “It is too hilly for the German artillery to be of any use,”
they said.’
Dr. Inglis goes on to relate how all the calculations were wrong, how
the Austrian force came down that very valley. The Serbs were caught
in a trap, and that 160,000 of their gallant little army escaped was
a wonderful feat. ‘That they are already keen to take the field again
is but one more proof of the extraordinary recuperative power of the
nation.’
Dr. Elsie gives an account of the typhus epidemic. The first unit
under Dr. Soltau, in 1914, was able at Kragujevatz to do excellent
work for the Serbian army after its victories, and it was only
evacuated owing to the retreat in October 1915. The unit had only
been a fortnight out when the committee got from it a telegram, ‘dire
necessity’ for more doctors and nurses. The word _dire_ was used,
hoping it would pass unnoticed by the censor, for the authorities did
not wish the state of Serbia from typhus to be generally known. We
shall never know what the death-rate was during the epidemic; but of
the 425 Serbian doctors, 125 died of the disease, and two-thirds of the
remainder had it.
The Scottish Committee hastened out supplies and staff.
‘For three months the epidemic raged, and all women may ever be proud
of the way those women worked. It was like a long-drawn-out battle,
and not one of them played the coward. Not one of them asked to come
away. There were three deaths and nine cases of illness among the
unit; and may we not truly claim that those three women who died gave
their lives for the great cause for which our country stands to-day as
much as any man in the trenches.’
Dr. Inglis speaks of the full share of work taken by other British
units--Lady Paget’s Hospital at Skopio, ‘magnificently organised’; The
Red Cross under Dr. Banks ‘took more than its share of the burden’; and
how Dr. Ryan of the American hospital asserted that Serbia would have
been wiped out but for the work of the Foreign Missions.
Miss Holme tells of some of her experiences with her leader:--
‘KRAGUJEVATZ.
‘One day, Dr. Elsie Inglis took me out shopping with her, and we
wanted a great many things for our hospital in the way of drugs, etc.,
and we also wanted more than anything else some medical scales for
weighing drugs. While we were in the shop Dr. Inglis saw hanging up
in it three pairs of these scales. So she asked the man, in her most
persuasive manner, if he would sell her a pair of these scales for our
hospital use. He explained at length that he used all the scales, and
was sorry that he could not possibly sell them. So Dr. Inglis bought
some more things--in fact, we stayed in the shop for about an hour
buying things to the amount of £10, and between each of the different
articles purchased, she would again revert to the scales and say,
“You know it is for _your_ men that we want them,” until at last the
man--exhausted by his refusals--took down the scales and presented
them to her. When she asked “How much are they?” he made a bow, and
said it would be a pleasure to give them to her.
‘When we were taken prisoners, and had been so for some time, and
before we were liberated, the German Command came bringing a paper
which they commanded Dr. Inglis to sign. The purport of the paper was
a statement which declared that the British prisoners had been well
treated in the hands of the Germans, and was already signed by two men
who were heads of other British units. Dr. Inglis said, “Why should
I sign this paper? I do not know if all the prisoners are being well
treated by you, therefore I decline to sign it.” To which the German
authorities replied, “You must sign it.” Dr. Inglis then said, “Well,
make me,” and that was the end of that incident--she never did sign it.
‘So convinced were some of the people belonging to the Scottish
Women’s unit that the British forces were coming to the aid of their
Serbian ally, that long after they were taken prisoners they thought,
each time they heard a gun from a different quarter, that their
liberators were close at hand. So much so indeed, that three of the
members of the unit begged that in the event of the unit being sent
home they might be allowed to stay behind in Serbia with the Serbs,
to help the Serbian Red Cross. Dr. Inglis _unofficially_ consented to
this, and with the help of the Serbian Red Cross these three people in
question adjourned to a village hard by which was about a mile from
the hospital, three days before the unit had orders to move. No one
except Dr. Inglis and three other people of the unit knew where these
three members were living. However, the date of the departure was
changed, and the unit was told they were to wait another twenty days.
This made it impossible for these three people to appear again with
the unit. They continued to live at the little house which sheltered
them. Suddenly one afternoon one of the members of the unit went to
ask at the German Command if there were any letters for the unit. At
this interview, which took place about three o’clock in the afternoon,
the person was informed that the whole unit was to leave that night
at 7.30. Dr. Inglis sent the person who received this command to tell
the three people in the cottage to get ready, and that they must go,
she thought. But the messenger only said, “We have had orders that the
unit is to go at 7.30 to-night,” but did not say that Dr. Inglis had
sent an order for the three people to get ready, so they did nothing
but simply went to bed at ten o’clock, thinking the unit had already
started. It was a wintry night, snowing heavily, and not a night that
one would have sent out a dog!
‘At about half-past ten a knock came to the window, and Dr. Inglis’
voice was heard saying, “You have to come at once to the train. I
am here with an armed guard!” (All the rest of the unit had been at
the station for some hours, but the train was not allowed to start
until every one was there.) So Dr. Inglis came herself for us. It was
difficult to get her to enter the house, and naturally she seemed
rather ruffled, having had to come more than a mile in the deep snow,
as she was the only person who knew anything about us. One of the
party said, “Are you really cross, or are you pretending because the
armed guard understands English?” She gave her queer little smile, and
said, “No, I am not pretending.” The whole party tramped through the
snow to the station, and on the way she told them she was afraid that
she had smashed somebody’s window, having knocked at another cottage
before she found ours in the dark, thinking it was the one we lived
in, for which she was very much chaffed by her companions, who knew
well her views on the question of militant tactics!
‘The first stages of this journey were made in horse-boxes with no
accommodation whatsoever. Occasionally the train drew up in the middle
of the country, and anybody who wished to get out had simply to ask
the sentry who guarded the door, to allow them to get out for a moment.
‘The next night was spent lying on the floor of the station at
Belgrade, the eight sentries and all their charges all lying on the
floor together; the only person who seemed to be awake was the officer
who guarded the door himself all night. In the morning one was not
allowed to go even to wash one’s hands without a sentry to come and
stand at the door. The next two days were spent in an ordinary train
rather too well heated with four a side in second-class compartments.
At Vienna all the British units who were being sent away were formed
into a group on the station at 6 A.M., where they awaited the arrival
of the American Consul, guarded all the time by their sentries, who
gave his parole that if the people were allowed to go out of the
station they would return at eight o’clock, the time they had to leave
that town. This was granted. Dr. Inglis with a party adjourned to a
hotel where baths, etc., were provided. Other members were allowed to
do what they liked.
‘The unit was detained for eight days at Bludenz, close to the
frontier, for Switzerland. On their arrival at Zürich they were met
by the British Consul-General, Vice-Consul, and many members of the
British Colony, who gave Dr. Inglis and her unit a very warm-hearted
welcome, bringing quantities of flowers, and doing all they could to
show them kindness and pleasure at their safe arrival.
‘It is difficult for people who have never been prisoners to know what
the first day’s freedom means. Everybody had a different expression,
and seemed to have a different outlook on life. But already we could
see our leader was engrossed with plans and busy with schemes for the
future work of the unit.
‘The next day the Consul-General made a speech in which he told the
unit all that had passed during the last four months, of which they
knew nothing.’
_To her Sister._
‘BRINDISI, _en route_ for SERBIA,
‘_April 28, 1915_.
‘The boat ought to have left last night, but it did not even come in
till this morning. However, we have only lost twenty-four hours.
‘It has been a most luxurious journey, except the bit from Naples
here, and that was rather awful, with spitting men and shut windows,
in first-class carriages, remember. When we got here we immediately
ordered baths, but “the boiler was broken.” So, I said, “Well, then,
we must go somewhere else”--with the result that we were promised
baths in our rooms at once. That was a nice bath, and then I curled
up on the sofa and went to sleep. Our windows look right on to the
docks, and the blue Mediterranean beyond. It is so queer to see the
red, white, and green flags, and to think they mean Italy, and not the
N.U.W.S.S.!
‘I went out before dinner last night, and strolled through the quaint
streets. The whole population was out, and most whole-hearted and
openly interested in my uniform.
‘This is a most delightful window, with all the ships and the colours.
There are three men-of-war in, and half a dozen of the quaintest
little boats, which a soldier told me were “scouts.” I wished I had
asked a sailor, for I had never heard of “scouts.” The soldier I asked
is one of the bersaglieri with cock’s feathers, a huge mass of them,
in his hat. They all say Italy is certainly coming into the war. One
man on the train to Rome was coming from Cardiff to sell coal to the
Italian Government. He told us weird stories about German tricks to
get our coal through Spain and other countries.
‘It was a pleasure seeing Royaumont. It is a _huge_ success, and I do
think Dr. Ivens deserves a lot of credit. The wards and the theatre,
and the X-Ray department, and the rooms for mending and cleaning the
men’s clothes were all perfect.’
_To Mrs. Simson._
‘S.W.H., KRAGUJEVATZ,
_May 30/15_.
‘Well, this is a perfectly lovely place, and the Serbians are
delightful. I am staying with a charming woman, Madame Milanovitz. She
is a Vice-President of the Serbian Women’s League, formed to help the
country in time of war. I think she wanted to help us because of all
the hospital has done here. Any how, _I_ score--I have a beautiful
room and everything. She gives me an early cup of coffee, and for the
rest I live with the unit. Neither she nor I can speak six words of
one another’s languages, but her husband can talk a little French.
Now, she has asked the little Serbian lady who teaches the unit
Serbian, to live with her to interpret. Anyhow, we are great friends!
‘We have had a busy time since we arrived. The unit is nursing 550
beds, in three hospitals, having been sent out to nurse 300 beds.
There is first the surgical hospital, called Reserve No. 3. It was a
school, and is in two blocks with a long courtyard between. I think
we have got it really quite well equipped, with a fine X-Ray room.
The theatre, and the room opposite where the dressings are done, both
very well arranged, and a great credit to Sister Bozket. The one thing
that troubled me was the floor--old wood and holes in it, impossible
to sterilise--but yesterday, Major Protitch, our Director, said he was
going to get cement laid down in it and the theatre. Then it will be
perfect. He said to Dr. Chesney, “This is the best surgical hospital
in Serbia.” You must not believe that _quite_, for they are very good
at saying pleasant things here!
‘There are two other hospitals, the typhus one, No. 6 Reserve, and
one for relapsing fever and general diseases, No. 7 Reserve, both
barracks. We have put most of our strength in No. 6, and it is in
good working order, but No. 7 has had only one doctor, and two day
Sisters and one night, for over 200 beds. Still it is wonderful what
those three women have done. We have Austrian prisoners as orderlies
everywhere, in the hospitals and in the houses. The conglomeration of
languages is too funny for words--Serbian, German, French, English.
Sometimes, you have to get an orderly to translate Serbian into
German, and another to translate the German into French before you can
get at what is wanted. Two words we have all learnt, _dotra_, which
means “good,” and which these grateful people use at once if they
feel a little better, or are pleased about anything, and the other is
_boli_, pain--poor men!
‘So much for what we _have_ been doing; but the day before
yesterday we got our orders for a new bit of work. They are forming a
disinfecting centre at Mladanovatz, and Colonel Grustitch, who is the
head of the Medical Service here, wants us to go up there at once,
with our whole fever staff, under canvas. They are giving us the tents
till ours come out. Typhus is decreasing so much, that No. 6 is to be
turned into a surgical hospital, and there will be only one infectious
diseases hospital here. I am so pleased at being asked to do this,
for it is part of a big and well thought out scheme. The surgical
hospital is to remain here. Alice Hutchison goes to Posheravatz also
for infectious diseases. I hope she is at Salonika to-day. She left
Malta last Sunday. We really began to think the Governor was going to
keep her altogether! Her equipment has all come, and yesterday I sent
Mrs. Haverfield and Mr. Smith up to Posheravatz to choose the site and
pitch the tent.
‘They gave me an awfully exciting bit of news in Colonel G.’s office
yesterday, and that was that five motor cars were in Serbia, north of
Mladanovatz, for _me_. Of course, I had wired for six, but you have
been prompt about them. How they got into the north of Serbia I cannot
imagine, unless they were dropped out of aeroplanes.
‘Really, it is wonderful the work this unit has done in the most awful
stress all through March and April. We ought to be awfully proud of
them. The Serbian Government gave Dr. Soltau a decoration, and Patsy
Hunter had two medals.
_To her Niece, Amy M‘Laren._
‘VALJEVO, _August 16, 1915_.
‘DARLING AMY,--I wonder if you could find this place on the map.
I have spelt it properly, but if you want to say it you must say
_Valuvo_. One of the hospitals mother has been collecting so much
money for is here. Such a beautiful hospital it is. It is in tents,
on a bit of sloping ground looking south. There are big tents for
the patients, and little tents for the staff. I pull my bed out
of the tent every night, and sleep outside under the stars. Such
lovely starlight nights we have here. Dr. Alice Hutchison is head of
this unit, and I am here on a visit to her. My own hospital is in
a town--Kragujevatz. Now, I wonder if you can find that place? The
hospital there is in a girls’ school. Now--I wonder what will happen
to the lessons of all those little girls as long as the war lasts?
Serbia has been at war for three years, four wars in three years, and
the women of the country have kept the agriculture of the country
going all that time. A Serbian officer told me the other day that
the country is so grateful to them, that they are going to strike a
special medal for the women to show their thanks, when this war is
over. This is such a beautiful country, and such nice people. Some day
when the war is over, we’ll come here, and have a holiday. How are you
getting on, my precious? Is school as nice as ever? God bless you,
dear little girlie.--Ever your loving Aunt
ELSIE.’
As the fever died out, a worse enemy came in. Serbia was overrun by
the Austro-German forces, and she, with others of her units, was taken
prisoner, as they had decided it was their duty to remain at their work
among the sick and wounded.
Again the Serbian Minister is quoted:--
‘When the typhus calamity was overcome, the Scottish women reorganised
themselves as tent hospitals and offered to go as near as possible
to the army at the front. Their camp in the town of Valjevo--which
suffered most of all from the Austrian invasion--might have stood
in the middle of England. In Lazarevatz, shortly before the new
Austro-German offensive, they formed a surgical hospital almost out
of nothing, in the devastated shops and the village inns, and they
accomplished the nursing of hundreds of wounded who poured in from
the battle-field. When it became obvious that the Serbian army could
not resist the combined Austrians, Germans, Magyars, and Bulgarians,
who were about four times their numbers, the main care of the Serbian
military authorities was what to do with the hospitals full of
wounded, and whom to leave with the wounded soldiers, who refused to
be left to fall into the hands of the cruel enemy. Then the Scottish
women declared that they were not going to leave their patients, and
that they would stay with them, whatever the conditions, and whatever
might be expected from the enemy. They remained with the Serbian
wounded as long as they could be of use to them.
_To Mrs. Simson._
‘KRUSHIEEVATZ, _Nov. 6, 1915_.
‘We are in the very centre of the storm, and it just feels exactly
like having the rain pouring down, and the wind beating in gusts, and
not being able to see for the water in one’s eyes, and just holding on
and saying, “It cannot last, it is so bad.” These poor little people,
you cannot imagine anything more miserable than they are. Remember,
they have been fighting for years for their independence, and now it
all seems to end. The whole country is overrun. Germans, Austrians,
Bulgars, and all that is left is this western Morava Valley, and
the country a little south of it. And their big Allies--from here
it looks as if they are never going to move. I went into Craijuvo
yesterday, in the car, to see about Dr. MacGregor’s unit. The road
was crowded with refugees pouring away, all their goods piled on
their rickety ox-wagons, little children on the top, and then bands
of soldiers, stragglers from the army. These men were forming up
again, as we passed back later on. The hospitals are packed with
wounded. We decided we must stand by our hospitals; it was too awful
leaving badly wounded men with no proper care. Sir Ralph eventually
agreed, and we gave everybody in the units the choice of going or
staying. We have about 115 people in the Scottish unit, and twenty
have gone. Mr. Smith brings up the rear-guard to-day, with one or two
laggards and a wounded English soldier we have had charge of. Two of
our units are here. Dr. MacGregor has trekked for Novi Bazaar. It is
the starting-place for Montenegro. We all managed wonderfully in our
first “evacuations,” and saved practically everything, but now it is
hopeless. The bridges are down, and the trucks standing anyhow on
sidings, and, worst of all, the people have begun looting. I don’t
wonder. There’ll be famine, as well as cold, in this corner of the
world soon, and then the distant prospect of 150,000 British troops at
Salonika won’t help much.
‘The beloved British troops,--the thought of them always cheers. But
not the thought of the idiots at the top who had not enough gumption
to _know_ this must happen. Anybody, even us women, could have told
them that the Germans must try and break through to the help of the
Turks.
‘We have got a nice building here for a hospital, and Dr. Holloway
is helping in the military hospital. I believe there are about 1000
wounded in the place. I can’t write a very interesting letter, Amy
dear, because at the bottom of my heart I don’t believe it will ever
reach you. I don’t see them managing the Montenegrin passes at this
time of year! There is a persistent rumour that the French have
retaken Skopiro, and if that is true perhaps the Salonika route will
be open soon.
‘Some day, I’ll tell you all the exciting things that have been
happening, and all the funny things too! For there have been funny
things, in the middle of all the sadness. The guns are booming away,
and the country looking so lovely in the sunlight. I wonder if Serbia
is a particularly beautiful country, or whether it looks so lovely
because of the tragedy of this war, just as bed seems particularly
delightful when the night bell goes!’
‘SERBIAN MILITARY HOSPITAL,
‘KRUSHIEEVATZ, _Nov. 30, 1915_.
‘We have been here about a month. It was dreadfully sad work leaving
our beautiful little hospital at Krushieevatz. Here, we are working in
the Serbian military hospital, and living in it also. You can imagine
that we have plenty to do, when you hear we have 900 wounded. The
prisoners are brought in every day, sometimes thousands, and go on to
the north, leaving the sick. The Director has put the sanitation and
the laundry into our hands also.
‘We have had a hard frost for four days now, and snowstorms. My
warm things did not arrive--I suppose they are safe at Salonika.
Fortunately last year’s uniform was still in existence, and I wear
three pairs of stockings, with my high boots. We have all cut our
skirts short, for Serbian mud is awful. It is a lovely land, and the
views round here are very cheering. One sunset I shall never forget--a
glorious sky, and the hills deep blue against it. In the foreground
the camp fires, and the prisoners round them in the fading light.’
With the invasion came the question of evacuation. At one time it was
possible the whole of the British unit might escape _via_ Montenegro.
Sir Ralph Paget, realising that the equipment could not be saved,
allowed any of the hospital unit who wished to remain with their
wounded. Two parties went with the retreating Serbs, and their story
and the extraordinary hardships they endured has been told elsewhere.
Those left at Krushieevatz were in Dr. Inglis’ opinion the fortunate
units. For three months they tended the Serbian wounded under foreign
occupation. The unit with Dr. Inglis kept to their work, and when
necessary confronted the Austro-German officers with all the audacity
of their leader and the Scottish thistle combined.
Their hospital accommodation was designed for 400 beds. When we went up
there were 900 patients. During the greatest part of the pressure the
number rose to 1200. Patients were placed in the corridors--at first
one man to one bed, but later two beds together, and three men in them.
Then there were no more bedsteads, and mattresses were placed on the
floor. We filled up the outhouses. The magazine in full blast was a
sight, once seen, never to be forgotten.
Upstairs the patients occupied the shelving. There were three tiers,
the slightly wounded men in the highest tier. The magazine was under
Dr. Holloway, and Dr. Inglis says the time to see the place at its
best or its worst was in the gloaming, when two or three feeble oil
lamps illuminated the gloom, and the tin bowls clattered and rattled as
the evening ration of beans was given out, and the men swarmed up and
down the poles of their shelves chattering as Serbs will chatter. The
Sisters called the place ‘the Zoo.’
The dread of the renewal of the typhus scourge, amid such conditions
of overcrowding, underfeeding, fatigue and depression, was great. Dr.
Inglis details the appalling tasks the unit undertook in sanitation.
There was no expert amongst them:--
‘When we arrived, the hospital compound was a truly terrible
place--the sights and smells beyond description. We dug the rubbish
into the ground, emptied the overflowing cesspool, built incinerators,
and cleaned, and cleaned, and cleaned. That is an Englishman’s job all
over the world. Our three untrained English girl orderlies took to it
like ducks to water. It was not the pleasantest or easiest work in the
world; but they did it, and did it magnificently.
‘Laundry and bathing arrangements were installed and kept going. We
had not a single case of typhus; we had a greater achievement than
its prevention. Late of an evening, when men among the prisoners were
put into the wards, straight from the march, unwashed and crawling
with lice, there was great indignation among the patients already in.
“Doktoritza,” they said, “if you put these dirty men in among us we
shall all get typhus.” Our hearts rejoiced. If we have done nothing
else, we thought, we have driven that fact home to the Serbian mind
that dirt and typhus go together.’
Dr. Inglis describes the misery of the Serbian prisoners:--
‘They had seen men go out to battle, conscious of the good work they
had done for the Allies in driving back the Austrians in their first
punitive expedition. We are the only ones who, so far, have beaten
our enemy. They came back to us broken and dispirited. They were
turned into the hospital grounds, with a scanty ration of beans, with
a little meat and half a loaf of bread for twenty-four hours. Their
camp fires flickered fitfully through the long bitter cold nights.
Every scrap of wood was torn up, the foot bridges over the drains, and
the trees hacked down for firewood. We added to the rations of our
sanitary workers, we gave away all the bread we could, but we could
not feed that enclosure of hungry men. We used to hear them coughing
and moaning all night.’
Dr. Inglis details the starving condition of the whole country, the
weakness of the famine-stricken men who worked for them, the starved
yoke oxen, and all the manifold miseries of a country overrun by the
enemy.
‘There was,’ she says, ‘a curious exhilaration in working for those
grateful patient men, and in helping the director, Major Nicolitch, so
loyal to his country and so conscientious in his work, to bring order
out of chaos, and yet the unhappiness in the Serbian houses, and the
physical wretchedness of those cold hungry prisoners lay always like
a dead weight on our spirit. Never shall we forget the beauty of the
sunrises, or the glory of the sunsets, with clear, cold sunlit days
between, and the wonderful starlit nights. But we shall never forget
“the Zoo” either, or the groans outside the windows when we hid our
heads under the blankets to shut out the sound. The unit got no news,
and they made it a point of honour to believe nothing said in the
German telegrams. We could not believe Serbia had been sacrificed for
nothing. We were convinced it was some deep laid scheme for weakening
other fronts, and so it was natural to believe rumours, such as that
the English had taken Belgium, and the French were in Metz.
‘The end of the five months of service in captivity, and to captive
Serbs ended. On the 11th February 1916, they were sent north under an
Austrian guard with fixed bayonets, thus to Vienna, and so by slow
stages they came to Zürich.
‘It was a great thing to be once more “home” and to realise how strong
and straight and fearless a people inhabit these islands: to realise
not so much that they mean to win the war, but rather that they
consider any other issue impossible.’
So Dr. Inglis came back to plan new campaigns for the help of the
Serbian people, who lay night and day upon her heart. She knew she had
the backing of the Suffrage societies, and she intended to get the
ear of the English public for the cause of the Allies in the Balkans.
‘We,’ who had sent her out, found her changed in many ways. Physically
she had altered much, and if we could ever have thought of the body
in the presence of that dauntless spirit, we might have seen that the
Angel of Shadows was not far away. The privations and sufferings she
described so well when she had to speak of her beloved Serbs had been
fully shared by the unit. Their comfort was always her thought; she
never would have anything that could not be shared and shared alike,
but there was little but hardship to share, and one and all scorned to
speak of privations which were a light affliction compared to those
of a whole nation groaning and waiting to be redeemed from its great
tribulation.
There was a look in her face of one whose spirit had been pierced by
the sword. The brightness of her eyes was dimmed, for she had seen the
days when His judgments were abroad upon the earth:--
‘Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are
stored;
He has loosed the fatal lightning of His terrible swift sword:
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I have read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps.’
She could never forget the tragedy of Serbia, and she came home, not
to rest, but vowed to yet greater endeavours for their welfare. The
attitude of the Allies she did not pretend to understand. She had
something of the spirit of Oliver Cromwell, when he threatened to
send his fleet across the Alps to help the Waldensians. In her public
speeches, when she set forth what in her outlook could have been done,
no censor cut out the sentences which were touched by the live coals
from off her altar of service. Dr. Elsie never recognised the word
‘impossible’ for herself, and for her work that was well. As to her
political and military outlook, the story of the nations will find it a
place in the history of the war.
For a few months she worked from the bases of her two loyal
Committees in London and Edinburgh. She spoke at many a public meeting,
and filled many a drawing-room. The Church of Scotland knew her
presence in London. ‘One of our most treasured memories will be that
keen, clever face of hers in St. Columba’s of a Sunday--with the far,
wistful melancholy in it, added to its firm determination.’ So writes
the minister. ‘We’ knew what lay behind the wistful brave eyes, a yet
more complete dedication to the service of her Serbian brethren.